7-14 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[March 16, 1872. 
Length of male 1 in. 2 lin., female 1 in. 7 lin. 
Meadows, etc. Europe. 
This is one of the species cited in Moquin-Tan- 
don’s ‘ Medical Zoology,’ and is included by Brandt 
and Ratzeburg. 
Hough Oil-beetle, Meloe rugosus, Marsh; black; 
head and thorax with confluent 
k- punctures; elytra irregularly punc- 
< tured, the punctures confluent, and 
A the i n lerstices glabrous ; suture 
slightly pilose.— Meloe autumnalis, 
Leach, Linn. Trans, xi. t. vi. f. 7, 8. 
| A/, punctatus, Stepli. Man. n. 2G31. 
Length from 5 to 9 lines. 
* Meadows. This is another of 
p icr> !g _ Meloe ^ ie species referred to by Moquin- 
autumnalis. Tandon. He indicates as a dis¬ 
tinction between this and the last- 
named, that the elytra are extremely rugose, whereas 
in M. proscarabaus they are only slightly so. 
(To he continued.) 
NOTES ON THE PROPERTIES OF THE 
GERANIEiE. 
BY JOHX n. JACKSON, A.L.S., 
Curator of the Museums, Kew. 
Geraniums, or more properly pelargoniums, are 
with us the most popular and best known garden 
plants. The Order to which they belong, including 
the tribes Oxalidece and Balsamiiiece , number about 
750 species. Lt-4s represented with us by the 
crane’s-bill (Geranium), the stork’s-bill (Erodium), 
the wood sorrel (Oxalis), and the balsam (lmpa- 
tiens). It is, however, more particularly of the tribe 
Geraniece that we have now to speak. It is widely 
distributed in various parts of the world, the plants 
often assuming very different forms from those we 
are accustomed to recognize as members of the tribe 
amongst our native or cultivated garden plants. 
The family is certainly not valuable, either in a me¬ 
dicinal or economic point of view, yet its charac¬ 
teristic properties are astringent and aromatic, 
many having a fragrant and some a musky odour. 
None of the British species are used in any way by 
us; but in North America Geranium maculatum, L., 
known as the crane’s-bill, crowfoot, or alum root, is 
considered a medicinal plant, and is used as a 
powerful a,stringent in chronic diarrhoea, leucorrhoea, 
etc., and as a substitute for kino, catechu, and the 
more expensive remedies of a similar class. Being 
devoid of any unpleasant taste, it is well adapted 
for infants and delicate persons. The root is the 
part employed, and it is given either in substance 
or in the form of tincture, decoction or extract. 
The crane’s-bill is described in Wood and Bache’s 
4 Dispensatory,’ as “ growing throughout the United 
States in moist woods, thickets and hedges, and 
generally on low grounds. It flowers from May to 
July, and the root for medicinal purposes should be 
collected in autumn. When dried, the root is in 
pieces from one to three inches long, from a quarter to 
half an inch in thickness, somewhat flattened, con¬ 
torted, wrinkled, tuberculated and beset with slender 
fibres. It is externally of an umber-brown colour, 
internally reddisli-grey, compact, inodorous, and of 
an astringent taste, without bitterness or other un¬ 
pleasant flavour. Water and alcohol extract its 
virtues. Tannin is an abundant constituent.” These 
roots are used throughout the United States, not 
only as an officinal medicine, but also as a popular 
domestic remedy. For administering to children 
they are usually boiled in milk. 
In South Africa, which is the head-quarters of 
the genus Pelargonium, several of the species are 
used medicinally; thus P. triste. Ait., has a tuberous, 
slightly astringent root, which, when dried and pul¬ 
verized, is used in diarrhoea and dysentery; and it 
has also been recommended as a vermifuge. These 
roots, in a fresh state, have been eaten by the 
natives as food. Another tuberous-rooted species 
is P. antidysentericum , E. et Z.; these roots are 
called t'Mamie by the natives of Namaqualand, 
where the plants grow; they are often as large as a 
man’s hand, and are boiled in milk and used in dys¬ 
entery. Amongst other medicinal Pelargonue of the 
Cape may be mentioned P. scutatum. Sweet., called 
by the colonists the Kaffir sorrel. It is a shrubby 
plant common in many parts of the eastern districts. 
The leaves are said to have astringent and anti¬ 
septic properties, and to be useful in cases of sore- 
throat, etc. From the petals of the flowers a juice 
of a blue colour can be expressed, which Burchell, 
the celebrated South African traveller, suggested 
might be found useful for painting. P. cucullatum, 
Ait., is also a shrubby plant, very common on the 
side of Table Mountain: “ It has been recommended 
in the form of decoction, or as an enema in colic, 
nephritis, and suppression of urine, and is also an 
excellent emollient.” It is said that this plant was 
formerly exported to Holland as Herha Althea. P. 
anceps, Ait., is a herbaceous plant, with small crimson 
flowers ; it is called Roode Rabassam by the natives, 
who use it for promoting parturition and to procure 
abortion. 
P. roseum, likewise a Cape species, is valuable on 
account of its yielding an essential oil much used in 
perfumery. This plant is very extensively culti¬ 
vated in the south of France and by the rose growers 
in Turkey. The oil is obtained from the leaves of 
the plant, one hundredweight of the latter yielding 
by distillation about two ounces of essential oil; it 
has a smell very similar to otto of rose, and is much 
used for adulterating that valuable article; it is, 
moreover, said to be frequently adulterated itself 
with the oil of Andropogon, which is considerably 
cheaper, and is imported in large quantities from 
the East. 
Next to the genus Pelargonium, the most interest¬ 
ing, perhaps, with regard to its products is Mon- 
sonia or Sarcocaulon. The plants have mostly 
fleshy spiny stems, which secrete or deposit a large 
quantity of a waxy or resinous substance; S. L'He- 
ritieri and S. Patersoni, are, perhaps, more highly 
endowed with this power than any other species. 
This substance seems to be formed in the bark, and 
in such large quantities, that the stems' become, to 
all appearance, a mere mass of wax, moulded to the 
form and shape of the stem. It is of a greenish- 
yellow colour externally, in fracture very like that 
of gamboge but rather more transparent; it burns 
like caoutchouc, but with a slightly aromatic smell. 
In alcohol it becomes softisli ancl partially plastic, and 
a similar effect is produced upon it by boiling water. 
It breaks with a short fracture, like a resin, so that it 
seems to possess a combination of waxy, resinous and 
elastic properties. As the stems of the plants be¬ 
come old the vegetable tissues seem to be displaced 
by the formation of this substance, so that becoming 
